


‘cause the way to my heart is through my mind

by klainelynch



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Cranefish Town, F/M, Fluff, Imbalance Comics (Avatar), Kyoshi Island, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, is the author self-projecting? maybe so.gif, reading as a love language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:21:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25576480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klainelynch/pseuds/klainelynch
Summary: Suki doesn’t much care for reading when she could be training or teaching others. But she might like it if Sokka was the one reading to her.Takes place right after the Imbalance comics, but it’s not necessary to have read them to read this fic.
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 72





	‘cause the way to my heart is through my mind

**Author's Note:**

> This fandom could always use more Sukka fics where they’re actually the focus, so here’s my contribution to that effort. I hope y’all enjoy it!

Suki finally, begrudgingly, learned how to read when she was nine years old.

On a beautiful spring morning, which she would have much rather spent outside, Daiki decided that this skill might be useful for her to know, and that it was worth his time to wrangle this small child indoors for an hour each day.

Looking back, Suki knew she didn't make it easy on him. If she could have spent every minute of every day outdoors— exploring in the woods, tracking foxes and other wildlife, learning how to sneak up on others by keeping her feet almost lighter than the air around her— she would have been perfectly happy. A tutor insisting that she sit down and focus on obnoxiously small characters as the sun teased her outside was _not_ her idea of fun.

"One day you'll be glad that you can read," Daiki would say, "And then you can thank me for all of the knowledge gained from your books and scrolls."

She _was_ grateful that he cared enough to help her. And it wasn't that she didn't enjoy learning. It was just that Suki couldn’t imagine a more boring way to learn something than by sitting still and reading.

Suki watched Naoko scan a field and identify the three poisonous plants, as well as the seven edible ones, and she learned how to keep others safe. She helped Ren mix the dough until it was just the right consistency, and leave it for hours until it had expanded to the right size, and she learned how to feed others. She held her first fans at age eight, and by copying the Kyoshi Warriors as they ran through their katas and asking for help when she couldn’t make her body move the right way, she learned how to protect herself, and later everyone around her. She listened to the elders as they told stories to the villagers seated in the main square, and while everyone else remembered, Suki learned.

So yes, she _could_ read, but book learning couldn’t keep up with her fast pace.

At first, Sokka didn't understand that about her. They had a lot in common, as the only non-benders of their group, but Suki was surprised that he could happily spend an entire afternoon with a book. During the war, he had never stopped moving. Time _still_ was time _wasted_ ; every minute before they faced the Fire Lord had to count. But now, Sokka could take his time with things. He wanted to learn as much as he could about as many topics as he could, and books were an easy way for him to do that.

She found him, one evening when she had checked all of his usual spots and turned up empty, in the room he shared with Aang. The woman who owned the building in the heart of Cranefish Town insisted that she would happily provide a room for each of them, but none of them knew how to explain that sleeping in a room alone felt like being suffocated. Katara said they had tried it, the first night at the Western Air Temple, and they hadn’t tried it since. Aang simply told the woman that they didn’t want any special treatment, and they got a room for the boys and a room for the girls.

It didn’t always stay that way— there were plenty of nights when Sokka would end up in Suki’s room, or Katara would make her way to Aang’s, and everyone else would shuffle around to make it work— but it was like that most nights, at least.

Sokka was sitting on his bed, hunched over a book whose cover she couldn't see, and his face was scrunched up in such intense concentration that Suki just had to laugh. He looked up, and his face shifted into that grin he reserved for her.

"Hey," he said quietly. "What's so funny?"

Instead of answering his question, she sat down next to him and laid her head on his shoulder. "I just love you, that's all."

He hummed in response as he grabbed her hand and interlaced their fingers. It meant closing his book, and Suki felt honored to have been chosen over it, even as she said, "I didn't mean for you to stop what you were doing. You can keep reading."

His thumb traced the back of her hand, and she shivered. They had been together for almost three years, but he still made her feel like that young girl who had surprised both of them by kissing him on his cheek. It was nice.

“I want to spend my time with _you_. We’re usually halfway around the world from each other.”

Truthfully, it had only been a few months since that had been the case, but she knew what he meant. Sometimes it was weird, being able to see Sokka whenever she wanted to, but it was the good kind of weird. They had earned it, after all of their time putting the world back together, and it probably wouldn’t be long until another one of those problems separated them again. Not knowing how long either of them would be in Cranefish Town made any wasted days feel sinful.

Neither one of them was made for idleness: Suki was training so many townspeople in chi blocking that she was recruiting from among her first students to help her train the rest, and Sokka was working with Aang and the other leaders to create a new government that was fair to benders and non-benders alike. There were some nights where they barely saw each other for dinner with the rest of the group before falling asleep.

But today was a rare day off for them both, and Suki didn’t want to spend it alone.

"Read to me?" she asked.

“It’s a history of different Earth Kingdom governments,” he said. “I’m trying to get ideas for what others have done so we can see what might work here. I don’t mind reading out loud, but it’s not exactly romantic material.”

She peeled away from his shoulder, kissed him gently, and didn’t pull back from his lips as she murmured, “It _is_ romantic if _you’re_ the one reading to me.”

“Okay,” he smiled, and his ears turned the faintest shade of pink. Suki loved that she could still have that effect on him. “Do you want me to start back at the beginning? I’m just a couple of pages into this chapter."

"No, just pick up wherever you were. I'll catch on." Settling her head back on his shoulder, she closed her eyes and let her hand that was no longer holding Sokka's hand rest warmly on his knee.

He started with a paragraph talking about the relationship between the provincial governments and Ba Sing Se during the era of Avatar Roku. It didn’t take long for Suki to understand his expression when she had walked in— the material was dense, and sometimes Sokka would stop and read the same sentence again just so _he_ could understand what he had read.

As she settled into the topic, Suki enjoyed the way Sokka’s voice kept her grounded. When he talked in a conversation, his voice was fast-paced and jumpy, as if he worried that others would cut him off before he could get his ideas out; when he read, his voice was measured and calm. He took as much time as he wanted and knew that Suki didn’t mind. His low tone resonated in his chest, and she could feel the vibrations in her own.

She didn’t understand everything that he was reading— the subject material was too new for her to grasp it all. But Sokka would emphasize a word here, group some words there, and Suki knew that she was understanding it more than if she tried reading it by herself. A few times, he stopped and tried to put the material in his own words to make sure that he understood what was going on; Suki loved how he wasn’t content until he really understood a problem, inside and out.

Later, Sokka would finish the chapter, and ask if she wanted him to keep going or if she wanted to make out some on the bed. Later, after their lips were sore and their hair was smoothed back into place, they would try that new noodle place for dinner, and take their time walking back.

But now, there was only the sound of Sokka’s voice, and as he read about the things that might become their future, Suki learned.

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a writing exercise to help me understand Suki’s voice better as I’m trying to finish a 5+1 gaang fic, but it became something I’m actually really proud of.
> 
> Personally, I’m more of a Sokka when it comes to reading. But I also teach middle school English, and I have plenty of kids for whom reading is just not their thing (which makes for a fun puzzle for me to figure out WHAT they might like to read— is it graphic novels? Audiobooks? Let’s find out!)
> 
> Every Sukka moment in this fic was me trying to live up to the sheer joy that I get whenever Sokka says “SUKI!”
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, even if (especially if?) they are nothing more than keysmashes. Also, not to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, but if someone were to draw Sokka reading to Suki, I WOULD die for that person.
> 
> Title is a lyric from “Texas Man” by The Chicks (if you have not listened to their Gaslighter album, you should definitely do that, it’s on Spotify so just go for it).
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [klainelynch](https://klainelynch.tumblr.com/)


End file.
